In case you missed it:
A Look at the Evolution of Incident Response and Incident Prevention: Part 1
1990’s – early 2000’s – The Melissa and ILOVEYOU Viruses
Both viruses did virtually the same thing; cause e-mail systems around the globe to fail and with no apparent financial motivation. However, they are an important milestone for incident prevention because they raised awareness about internet security with computer users.
These viruses did two important things for the Cybersecurity world:
– Raised security awareness among the general internet community.
– Led to the creation of Anti-Virus software companies such as Symantec, AVG, Bitdefender, F-Secure and more. The anti-virus was meant to suss out the ‘signature’ of the virus and terminate the related script.
2000’s – Targeted Attacks On Regulated Data
Albert Gonzales allegedly led a hacker group by the name of ShadowCrew, and managed to compromise the TJ Maxx’s systems on a wide scale. 45.6 million debit and credit card numbers were stolen in just a year and a half which cost the parent company, TJX, around $256 million.
TJX learned the hard lesson of being under protected on behalf of the entire business community thus leading to the use of more sophisticated security systems.
Present:
Now we are in a stage where hacking methods have become much more sophisticated, like the recent Target Data Breach. This group of hackers realized that they wouldn’t be able to bypass Target’s security directly, so they sent a phishing e-mail the employees at a 3rd party Refrigeration Company who had temporary access to their network.
In addition to casual users; big and small business alike need to be proactively educating themselves/staff on safe cyber security practices and implementing advanced security measures.